Michael E. Walsh

EDUCATION

BFA - Creighton University
1967-1971
Omaha, NE

South Side Senior High School
graduated 1966
Long Island, NY

EMPLOYMENT

BIOGRAPHY

DOB: February 7, 1948
Council Bluffs, IA

Mike Walsh spent his childhood in Long Island, New York. After high school he moved to the midwest, to study sculpture under William Farmer and Leland Lubbers S.J. at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Receiving his BFA, he returned to the east coast and worked in the bronze foundry at the Dama Art Studio in Norwalk, Connecticut. After three years Mike left the foundry as foreman with a broad range of skills in the bronze casting process. He spent a year as a welder/designer at the Wm. Bowie Art Studio in New York City.

Mike was then hired to supervise the furniture/art facility at St. Croix Life and Environmental Arts Project, a program which brings together locally harvested tropical hardwoods and the talents of local artisans as a training program for local youths. Mike decided to stay on St. Croix, and in 1978 began his own company, Walsh Metal Works. Walsh Metal has grown from one to eight employees, and continues to provide the Caribbean with industrial, architectural and residential metal fabrications.

In 1999 Walsh was commissioned to design and build the Middle Passage Monument, which travelled to New York before being submerged in the Atlantic Ocean as a symbolic grave marker for the millions of Africans who died en route to America during the slave trade.

On May 16, 2000 Mike completed the transformation of over 2000 square feet of his warehouse space into St. Croix’s newest art gallery, the Walsh Metal Works Gallery, where he hosts local and international exhibitions, and a regular program of workshops for local artists.

Mike's sculptures have a broad range of influences in modern and ancient tradition, and vary greatly in scale. His education and broad work experience have afforded him exceptional technical proficiency, allowing him to take on challenging problems in his work. Mike works with a variety of techniques and materials; wood, bronze, stainless steel and iron, as well as works on paper.